


youth and flowers

by amelioratedays



Category: GOT7, JJ Project
Genre: M/M, Yay for non-plot!plot because Idek what I wrote
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-20 18:27:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9505328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amelioratedays/pseuds/amelioratedays
Summary: Written for the prompt at 7fics:  "even strangers can smile at me but why can't you"





	

**Author's Note:**

> Partly inspired by Jacky Xue's song "The Flower and The Youth"

It’s half past three when Jaebum stumbles into the classroom, wooden door sliding open noisily. The white bordered clock hangs above the blackboard, second hand ticking amongst the silence. He doesn’t expect anyone, stopping midstep when a figure enters his vision. The setting sun showers the room a golden hue, basking the two of them in a field of light. For a moment he doesn’t make out who it is, sunlight blinding him as he attempts to step into the shadows. It’s only a short while before his eyes adjust, and Jaebum finally registers who was in front of him. He debates upon what exactly to say, a hand reaching to tug at the ends of his hair. “I forgot something in my desk.” He gestures towards the back, making his way to his desk.

The younger male only nods before returning his attention to the mop in his hands. “You’re in charge of classroom duty this week?” Jaebum asks the obvious as he rummages through his desk. The younger male nods again in response, letting out a small affirmative hum when he realizes that Jaebum isn’t able to see his actions. There’s no more attempts at conversation as Jaebum finally finds what he needs, stuffing the papers into his backpack. He gives the brunette haired male a curt look before stumbling out the classroom in the same manner just a few minutes ago. The wooden door shuts with a small thud, coinciding with the small ‘tick’ of the classroom clock. Jinyoung looks up at the closed door then down at the grey footprints upon the tiled floors. The corners of his lips tug downwards in the slightest way, brows knitting together as he frowns.

It’s three thirty-six as Jaebum walks down the empty corridor, footsteps rebounding off the cement walls. It’s three thirty-six as Jinyoung takes a short inhale, mopping away the traces Jaebum had left behind.

 

 

 

 

 

There’s something about their brief encounter that strikes Jaebum as memorable—although he isn’t sure whether it is the way the sunlight seemed to wrap around the younger male in a glow. Or whether it was the way that even amidst the warmth of the sunlight, the other’s gaze had still seemed so tepid—so stagnant. Or maybe it was because it had been one of the few times that it was just the two of them in a solitary space. He tries to recall the years before, tries to remember whether the other male had always been so collected.

It’s late night neuroticism—moonlight diffused by the sheer curtains and his rationality diffused by emotions he can’t quite place his finger on. Jaebum doesn’t deem himself to be someone that really paid attention to those around him. It hasn’t been once or twice that others have commented on his indifference to the constant change external to his microcosm. He’s almost always lived with a motto of letting things go as they be, choosing to approach from the world-in and not the other way around. Yet, an unsettling feeling finds its way under his skin as he wonders why he’s so insistent on placing a conclusive label on someone who should only be a bypasser in his teenage years.

There really isn’t anything unique nor worth remembering about today’s interaction. Nor any of their past conversations that only went a few sentences beyond greetings and courteous small talk. So why? What about it—about him—leaves him so unsettled? What is it about the doe eyed youth that seems to suffocate Jaebum with unspoken words every time? Where he’s always left not knowing what to say, yet wanting to say something— _anything at all_. Jaebum doesn’t quite know; nor does he know why he wants to know. The white curtains flutter slightly as night wind travels through the window, in a way that reminds Jaebum of both butterflies as well as fire. “I must be going insane,” he mutters. It’s late night neuroticism—stars lost in the night sky; thoughts lost within his mind.

 

 

 

 

 

Jaebum concludes his own ponderings mid-sentence, closing the unfinished file and tossing it to the back of his head. This isn’t a subject he should be lingering upon and he knows well enough that such a question would never have a logical answer. He’s navigating on emotions and intuitions—trying to find factual evidence to justify his own impressions. For what? He wonders.

For nothing, he determines.

And he continues on just as the day before—pretending the tangential nine hours of aberrant contemplation seemingly nonexistent. There’s more than enough to worry about in his third year of high school; whether it be about future paths or the fleetingness of his teen aged years. Life should be about himself—his stars shifting into introspection. Jaebum shakes his head, clearing his thoughts before looking up at the blackboard. He gives his pen a spin, rerouting his mind and jotting down the notes on the board.

He ponders upon the extent that such postulates and theorems are actually applicable to his everyday life. Looking at the numbers and formulas scribbled messily on the sheet in front of him, Jaebum gives a small sigh. There’s a fixation with logic and probability—with stability—that fuels the human soul. They’re always attempting to calculate each and every thing in prevention of disaster (of chaos); yet, when has the human heart ever succumbed to natural laws?

“Don’t think about this,” he tells himself.

“Focus,” he tells himself.

“Stop,” he tells himself.

 

 

 

 

 

_It doesn’t._

 

 

 

 

 

Jinyoung sits four seats besides him, one row back. And it isn’t until Jaebum slightly turns his head to the left that he’s able to catch a glimpse of the brown eyed male in his peripheral vision. There’s always beauty in fleetingness, the uncertain—the hidden. And so he watches through unfocused lenses as the wind flows through the opened window slightly displace the other’s fringe. The other boy remains undisturbed, eyes focused on his notes.

Brief moments, Jaebum thinks, it’s brief moments like such that seem to burn into his memories. There’s a mesmerizing pull that the other boy seems to exude, something that seemingly conjures from nowhere and yet overwhelms him nonetheless. The thought of Jinyoung seems to be like that of a loose thread. It isn’t until you finally notice its presence that it seems so evident, and when he tugs at the strand he finds it all unravels at once without end.  He puts down his pen, resting his head on his arm instead. His hair falls softly with his motion, interrupting his line of vision with a curtain of noir. There’s a surge of rightfulness that overcomes him, seeps under his veins and travels to his heart. Maybe it’s courage, maybe he’s delirious—who knows? But when Jinyoung finally looks up to meet his eye, Jaebum doesn’t turn away. The brunette male is first to break their gaze, eyes shifting to the side as he looks on.

Why? Jaebum wonders as he finally closes his eyes, vision blearing into black. The wind billows softly, fallen leaves traveling midair as the world continues. Jaebum feels as if they’re all falling within the quicksand of time.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a Thursday afternoon, raindrops hitting the glass panes of the windows in arrhythmic ways. The smell of petrichor floats lightly in the air, settling down upon their shoulders. Jaebum feels as though the air sits above his chest, where he’s overly conscious of the energy it takes to simply inhale—exhale. And something in his mind clicks into place; epiphany reaching him in the strangest moments.

“He never smiles at me.” He realizes with a mutter.

“What are you talking about?” Mark throws him a sideways glance, messily finishing the self study assignment.

“I never make him smile.” Jaebum whispers.

“Who?” Mark finally looks up from his work, cocking his head to the side.

“Jinyoung.” He states obviously.

“What?”

“I—nevermind,” he stops mid-sentence, closing his mouth when he catches their teacher’s glance. The rain continues in the background, static noise filling the quiet classroom. And his thoughts continue as well, watered by the rain as it settles in his mind and starts to bud.

 

 

 

 

 

There’s something particularly “human” in the way that thoughts and emotions often run off course. And no matter how much Jaebum tells himself to focus, he finds that an appeal to logic fails miserably to that to one’s emotions. The fatal flaw of humankind, he thinks. The beauty of humankind, he reckons.

Was he seeking recognition? Approval? Why did it bother him so how the other would perceive him? Hadn’t he always been indifferent to other’s voices? Why was it that with every confrontation he’s always calculating everything to say yet leaving with it all unsaid? What was it that Jinyoung signified? Jaebum isn’t sure; neither is he sure whether or not there was any substantial meaning behind his actions and thoughts.

Was this youth? The momentaneous burst of desire and motivation with no particular meaning? Or perhaps it will only start to make sense when the lines have settled into his expression and the noir of his hair fades to speckled grey. But whether youth meant reckless actions or regrets in afterthought still remains a puzzle unsolved.

What’s there to lose? He contemplates.

What’s the point? He sighs.

The world seems to open up upside down—or maybe it’s simply because Jaebum realizes that right-side up has always been upside down. The sudden epiphany becomes all too clear, unable to erase itself from the centre of his mind. As if frost has slowly formed on the lenses, iced haze blurring his vision except for one spot in the very centre. So that when he looks up, the only image that enters his vision is Jinyoung.

It gnaws slowly at the back of his mind, at the speed akin to collecting water from a leaky faucet. Slow but rhythmic and accumulative, similar to the water clocks of the ancient past. But also similar to the water torture of ages long ago. He finds both analogies suitable; it’s time slowly passing, it’s torment that slowly drives him insane.

 

 

 

 

 

“Are we friends?” Jaebum finally asks after repeating such a phrase within his mind countless times. He’s moving past boundaries, trying to turn something lukewarm into vapours.

“Aren’t we?” Jinyoung repeats, slightly taken back from his words. There’s a flash of astonishment that glazes over the other’s eyes, dissolving within his irises.

“I mean…,” Jaebum starts, “we’re…friends?” He watches as the younger male nods slowly in agreement. “And?” Jinyoung inquires.

And?

Had there been a second part to his question? There was, but what had it been? Jaebum doesn’t quite remember and neither is he quite sure what he wanted to inquire about.

“And?” He repeats, thoughts covered within a veil of haze. Jaebum observes as Jinyoung’s expression turns from one of confusion to one of slight dismay. The glimmer in the other’s eyes fades dully, brows knitting together. It’s that look again, he thinks.

“You never smile at me.”

“Huh?”

“Even strangers can smile at me, why can’t you?” He’s pondering aloud, mind lost within reality and daydreams. “But we’re not strangers,” he reassures himself. The room around him spins in ways that seem hallucinatory, as if time was both frozen and fastwording at the same time. Jaebum wonders if this was only another dream, so that when he does wake up in the end, he’ll be able to forget everything by the time the day ends. (So that Dream-Jinyoung can also forget all that he says.)

He closes his eyes tightly before reopening them, in an effort to focus his thoughts. The room stops spinning this time, though the feeling of instability still stays within him.

Jinyoung still has the same expression when Jaebum recollects his thoughts. Though this time he isn’t sure whether it’s an expression of confusion or one of disapproval. A part of his consciousness wonders if Jinyoung’s figure would dissolve into ripples when he reaches out.

“I’m catching the moon in the pond,” he says aloud. It’s half trepidation and also half anticipation that overwhelms him as he shifts between states of hyposensitivity and hypersensitivity. A if all his senses were registering reality and the imagined all at once.

“You’re not making sense,” Jinyoung tells him.

“I’ve never seen you smile because of me,” he comments in disregard.

Jaebum can’t tell whether the constant drumming he hears is from the rain upon the windows, the second hand of the clock, or whether it’s his own heartbeat. Maybe it’s all of it at once, each running off in its own tempo—a cacophonious song that reminds him of battle hymns. He looks up intently at the male in front of him, leaning slightly forward—  

“If I smile at you, would you smile at me?” He wants to ask.

“Are you dream-Jinyoung or reality-Jinyoung?” He wants to ask.

“I’m not making sense,” he says in the end.

“I know.”

“You don’t make sense,” he stammers. “To me—you don’t make sense to me.”

“There’s an aura you hold,” he says. “Something that makes you seem like the moon in the city sky.” Jaebum searches for the right words, phrases only coming to him in fragmented pieces. “Distant but bright. Solitary.”

Jinyoung doesn’t give him an answer, setting his book down on his desk and looking up at him instead.

“I’m catching the moon in the pond. One more step and I’ll fall within the waters, look up and find that I’ve caught nothing at all.” Jaebum sighs, running a hand through his hair. “I’m not making any sense to myself either.” He mutters with an attempt at a casual smile, though he feels it looks more like a grimace.

 

 

 

 

 

“There’s no moon to catch,” is what Jinyoung finally says when Jaebum finds his expression faltering. He catches the younger male’s gaze, looking within the obsidian irises of the other boy. “I’m not a question waiting to be solved, Jaebum.” Jinyoung continues with a small sigh that only further unsettles Jaebum’s thoughts. It’s in afterthought that he regrets never suppressing spontaneous momentum, wishing that he had never opened up this conversation at all.

It’s not that Jaebum doesn’t understand the foolishness of his thoughts—he does. In fact, Jaebum is more than well aware that such a foolishness stems from him not understanding his own thoughts. He knows that he’s asking Jinyoung for something—but what it was that he’s asking for, he can’t pinpoint yet.

“You’re the one in question,” Jinyoung tells him. “You’ve always been.” Such a reply fazes Jaebum, as he tries to register all the words left in between the lines. As if he’s had all the pieces of an unsolved puzzle all along; yet, never putting them in the rightful places. Something in his chest seems to lock into place, blurred lenses slowly clearing up.

And when he finally reaches out, Jaebum finds that all doesn’t fade into ripples. He watches slowly as his fingertips brush against other’s fringe, soft locks sweeping back with his actions.

“There’s no moon to catch,” Jaebum tells himself.

The rain continues to water the grounds below, as the seed of his thoughts finally begin to sprout underneath seemingly barren soil. Jaebum wonders vaguely if it’ll sooner or later bud into a touch-me-not; hiding within from the external world. Or whether it’d bud into roses armed with thorns. But as he looks into Jinyoung’s gaze, he figures that such ponderings can only be left up to the future.

 

 

 

 

 

Jaebum loses count of how long passes until he fully comprehends all that’s lost in days of youth and flowers. Though it’s after many spring and autumns until he realizes that the moon of the skies (nor the waters) was never meant to be caught. Yet, still existent whether or not he’s standing on dry land or not.

 

 

 

 

 

_“You’re the one in question,” Jinyoung tells him._

_“I’m the answer.” Jinyoung doesn’t say._


End file.
